http://www.easternecho.com/index.php/article/2011/10/calm_down_obama_wont_kill_you
After all, you’re small fry. So what are you worried about?
Here’s some choice gems from this lobotomized pulp piece that passes itself off as journalism.
First of all, the president set a pretty high threshold for an attack on an American citizen. Al-Awlaki was overseas plotting the death of American citizens. Granted, the president didn’t haul him before a court to prove he was doing it, but the point stands.
No, the point does not stand. We have no idea what Obama’s private, personal standard of acceptable criteria for assassination is unless someone with an adversarial interest can force him to explain it under threat of legal risks to himself (personally). To suggest otherwise is to ask religious credulity in a mere mortal.
The president set a precedent where he can kill you if he believes you’re a danger to the country, has no expectation of capturing you successfully and time is a factor. That might not fill you with confidence, but those are some pretty rare conditions.
Even if true, it is only true at this point in time. As with all new powers, the conditions for their exercise are intially rare but rapidly grow with time.
If you’re reading this and are worried this logic will open a “slippery slope” toward other attacks, consider how difficult it would be to sell: “Well, Bill was going to publish a negative story about my handling of Congress, so I launched an F-16 to level his home and office.”
How about an anonymous satellite phone call to a top media magnate vacationing on a private island somewhere in the middle of the ocean asking him to look out his west-facing window to see a Predator drone flying by and reminding him that his top editor has once again used his government sources in a way that DC does not like. Of course, they already can do this (and probably do) but the point is that third-grade caricatures of the dangers of un-reviewed Presidential assassinations of US citizens proves nothing but that the author requires an undue level of credulity in the President.
Another reason we shouldn’t worry about the president killing us is he and the American system have an interest in proving their case and making an example out of bad people. It serves the interest of the country to capture a terrorist or other dangerous people to show our system is equipped to handle the most difficult of circumstances.
Except that half the War on Terror is probably staged by the CIA itself. We can’t be capturing and trying people that have been turned by the CIA. The trial testimony would be damning.
There is also a public relations war to be won. The president doesn’t want to indiscriminately kill American citizens because it would be terrible politics. You’ve got to be able to sell why you called for the hit or the hit isn’t worth it.
Assuming the public ever finds out about it. “American citizen found mysteriously exploded in pile of rubble. Seven others injured or killed.”
It’s not cost-effective to target people who are of low value with that kind of assault, and let’s face it – even in a nightmare scenario, none of the most troublesome political opponents are strong enough to get a Predator Drone sent to their house.
“Don’t worry, you’re not important enough to garner the President’s interest. The Eye of Sauron is not distracted by mere ants.”
So while we ought to leave the legal technicalities about whether or not he was allowed to kill al-Awlaki to the professionals, I would like to assure you the president has no plans to kill you.
Actually, law is not something reserved for specialists. Law is just a body of methods for resolving disputes between people, it is not the inaccesible Latin-encoded Holy Scriptures - decodeable only by clerical specialists - that the Establishment wants to make it out to be. Secret law was banned in Western culture a long time ago. Judging by this article, it looks like it’s coming back into vogue.
Is the president allowed to kill you? Maybe. Should you be worried that he’s going to? Not a chance.
And here’s the lynchpin. The author believes that the President just may be allowed to kill you (the suburbanite reader of his article). It would be downright chilling if this author wasn’t such an ass-clown. The political news industry has, by and large, descended into the morass of Orwellian nihilism from which there is no return. I sure hope my country soon recovers from this present madness.
Clayton -